Two Foxes are Better than One
by Nekogami Bastet
Summary: With the Makai Barrier down and yōkai free to roam Ningenkai, Koenma and Enki both have to worry about a problem that had stopped being a concern centuries ago, hiding the Makai and the Reikai citizens from creatures not native to Earth. For this delicate matter, they need a cunning mind. It just so happens that Kurama lost the last Makai Tournament again... Snippets.
1. Silent Meeting

I own neither X Files nor Yu Yu Hakusho

'°0.o°O°o.0°'

Fox Mulder didn't know what about the young man he was looking at had attracted his interest so much that he couldn't peel his eyes away. Perhaps it was because he looked like a girl. A very beautiful girl at that, and Fox, like any man, was sensible to beauty. But still... He had been staring at that young _man_ for over a minute. And Fox was straight he knew that much.

The young man was probably Asian, or most likely part Asian. His eyes, the delicate lines of his face as well as his slender build screamed Asian. His bright red hair (redder then Dana's), and incredible green eyes that he could see even from afar, suggested Caucasian blood on both parents' sides.

He was beautiful to be sure, but that was no reason for Fox to be staring.

Perhaps was it because the young man wearing a business suit had something so utterly "impossible" about him. DNA could produce people like him of course, but not only was it rare, but the contrast between the youth (in all its long-haired glory) and the professionalism of the suit was so stark, that added to his striking appearance the young man simply seemed otherworldly. Even stranger to Fox than any of the weirder things he had seen in his life (and how they piled up!).

Fox decided here and then that he would not be surprised if the boy turned out to not be human.

The FBI agent grumbled a bit and lowered his eyes on the file in front of him, trying (and failing) to lose interest in the young red-head in favor of some sightings of UFOs near the Canadian frontier.

Fake. These photos were fakes. The very kind of photos that typically made his work harder by discrediting his center of interest as well as his work. No wonder people thought UFOs were lies or rubbish invented by idiots and madmen with the number of fakes that circulated... Fox would have liked to give a piece of his mind to the people who thought making fakes was "funny", and the days he was at his lowest, the days he was unable to stay strong under the pressure and the mockery, he wished that those pranksters would live the same thing he did, have someone they care about taken

by _them_ , just like he had.

Those days Dana was the only person who managed to get him out of his funk.

His eyes lifted again from the file he had been trying to read, and returned to their previous occupation: staring at the young man sitting in a cafe opposite to the one he was in.

He was also reading a printed document, though Fox could not tell what was the nature of this document from where he was. His free hand, the right one, was absently throwing a pen in the air, and catching it again when it fell, without him having to look at what he was doing at all. Fox had thought for a second that the pen was in fact a knife. Even though it certainly wasn't...

Why had his eyes tricked him so? Was it because of the way the young man was doing this little show? Relaxed, precise, always catching one end between two fingers. Deadly. That was it. That young man was throwing the pen like a professional knife thrower. Without actually looking.

Fox knew that he would be unable to stop staring as long as the red-head did this... He was waiting for the moment the pen would fall, wondering how long the strange young man could keep this up.

Perhaps the _o_ _ddity_ had felt Fox's eyes on him, because startling bright green met startled pale green. An amused smile flitted across the red-head's lips. Fox felt the embarrassment of having been caught staring color his neck and face. He put on his best apologetic expression. The pen was caught, but not thrown again, and a nod in Fox's direction told him he was forgiven.

The FBI agent forced his eyes away, and resumed his work. On the other side of the street the weird "Asian" did the same.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'

AN: As you may have understood, this will be a collection of snippets which I will write as I watch the serie. I haven't finished X Files yet, so this will follow the chronology of the episodes, that way I shouldn't make plot related mistakes (hopefully).

I hope you will like it!


	2. Ass Kicking wont Work on Flying Saucers

I own neither X Files nor Yu Yu Hakusho

'°0.o°O°o.0°'

Yusuke didn't like it. He didn't like it at all.

Something whose ass you can't kick...? Since when? Human mutants, well it was somewhat disgusting (from the file Kurama had read to him anyway), but still human. Which meant you couldn't kill them, couldn't even hurt them. The Makai had laws against that. But if it was just that then you could let humans take care of it.

Nope, what he didn't like was possibly small, gray, with a big head and creepy giant eyes (if the films where right). Something that made souls disappear, something that sometimes died on Earth and whose soul ended up in Reikai, leaving the toddler king stumped each and every time. How can you judge something (someone?) whose history you don't have 'cause it's lost somewhere in orbit?

"They have been here since ages" had said Koenma. Kurama had seemed surprised. Yusuke also didn't like when Kurama was surprised. Kurama was _never_ surprised.

Which begged the question, why had the Reikai, the protectors of Ningenkai done nothing? They could do nothing, that's why. It's not like they could travel to space after all.

And did these... things... know about yōkai?

So far no. No yōkai had ever been kidnapped before. Your usual yōkai was invisible to the naked eye, unless you had enough reiki, and though a more powerful yōkai could make itself visible, if he hid yōki then he would be just as invisible as a weak yōkai. The Makai was safe.

Like hell it was!

The Makai barrier was down, now even powerful yōkai could go through. Yōkai powerful enough to be freaking visible.

Heck, Hiei had even been mistaken for an alien before! (The irony... It burned).

And hanyou... There would be lots of them in the goddamn future. How did you hide those?

Nope, he really didn't like it, because if _Kurama_ hadn't known about those... things. Invaders. Freaks. Then that meant they were good at hiding and not leaving any trace.

Humans suspected said Kurama. Well they were the ones getting kidnapped weren't they?

Which meant Yusuke was left looking over his shoulder and up to the sky in suspicion every-time he was alone at his ramen stand at night.

Makai citizens had all been warned. Humans could also mistake them for aliens, which would be bad. They had to be discreet.

And of course Enki and Koenma had decided they needed a network of informants to protect both yōkai and perhaps even Earth itself in the long run. And Kurama, as a loser of the Makai tournament in service of Enki and one of the most in touch with the Human world, but also the best out there when it came to spying and sneaking around, had been chosen for the job.

Yeah. Yusuke really, really didn't like it.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'


	3. Home Runs Always Get the Job Done

I own neither X Files nor Yu Yu Hakusho

'°0.o°O°o.0°'

Botan tightened her grip on her oar, feeling cold sweat pour down her back. She shot a brief look at Kuwabara who looked just as freaked out as she was, his eyes fixated on the man on the bed and the ghostly shape that seemed to be trying to escape his flesh.

They could see its gray, strangely shaped face. It looked almost like rock, and to the two it was not as transparent as normal humans saw it. No, it was vaporous and it shape was changing constantly, but it looked as dense and real as any Reikai being.

Botan bit her lip and raised her oar like a baseball bat. Kuwabara called his power to his right hand and formed his Jigen Tō, it's color – a mix of gold and green – creating shadows all around for those who could see it.

Of course, had a normal human looked into the room he would have seen a sick man with an irregular heartbeat, looking like he was having a nightmare, and a young man posed like he was emulating some ancient swordsman, without the sword, in a completely dark room.

"Kuwabara, I hope you know what to do."

"Of course I do!"

He'd been briefed a total of three times already!

Botan swung the oar with all her strength in the sick man's face. The spiritual oar went through without hurting him, but clubbed the alien spirit in its frightening face, forcing it out of the man's body instantly.

Kuwabara had been ready for it and cut through the fabric of dimensions itself, right behind the strange spirit.

It tried to fly away, but another swing of Botan propelled it right into the tear of space time. It closed right behind it.

Both human and spirit let out twin explosive sighs.

"Well, it was easy." Finally said Botan. "When Koenma said that we had to send an alien reiki creature into Reikai I thought it would be much harder!"

"It was freaky though. I hope Reikai can contain it."

"Koenma has a special prison prepared. He's hoping that we'll learn more about other Reikai worlds by studying this thing."

Her eyes fell on the man. She approached him and let her healing reiki flow into him. The man's breathing evened out, and his face slowly regained color.

"He'll go to prison..." Said Kuwabara with a frown. "It's so unfair. He wasn't even conscious of what he was doing."

"He won't be going to prison." Said Botan firmly. "Kurama wants to contact him, and he has the Reikai's support. Tomorrow all traces of the sabotage he committed under the possession will have disappeared, and people will have conveniently forgotten about all that happened."

Kuwabara looked relieved.

Before they left, Botan left a small note in the pocket of the man's trousers. It read "to Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Aurelius Belt, mission commander of NASA", and held the time and date of a mysterious meeting. It was signed "Kurama".

'°0.o°O°o.0°'


	4. Fox Smells a Fox

I own neither X Files nor Yu Yu Hakusho

'°0.o°O°o.0°'

Dana Scully and Fox Mulder were staring at the hyper man in the even stranger van. He was called Max, Mulder had discovered that when he had encountered him the night before in the cell next to his. They had both been thrown in there for having bypassed a military quarantine, knowing full well that hidden behind the cover of a train crash was _not_ a crashed Libyan plane. They _knew_ what the army was trying to hide, and both had been searching for proofs before getting caught.

Still, to find Max searching his whole room and trying to escape by his bathroom window had been... unsettling. It didn't help that the man had freely admitted to having done that purely out of curiosity because NICAP had been following Mulder's carrier for years, and had the overall behavior of a fan-boy when interacting with Mulder. He had even guided them to his van, and made them listen to two recorded radio call made the evening of the crash forty-eight hours ago.

"This... is strange it's true." Admitted Scully very reluctantly.

The desperate cries of the men were still ringing in their ears.

"Isn't it? All caught thanks to this." Grinned Max while looking at the complicated machine in front of him lovingly.

"It must have cost a fortune..." Said Mulder, impressed.

"Well... Not really. I had older surveillance equipment before that. But a few month ago this... Oh I can't..." There he seemed to stumble in his answer, before looking confident once more. "What am I saying, of course I can tell _you_ about him. He said he didn't mind."

Both agents shared a look. Max hadn't struck them as secretive at all, not before that little comment, thrown innocently.

"Anyway, a few months ago this guy sends me a letter, without a stamp mind you, with some photos of UFOs I had never seen before and giving me the day and the hour of a meeting. Turns out he was interested in what I know, and he asked me to send him regular reports. In exchange he sends me money, cash."

"You never found this suspicious? At all?" Asked Scully, somewhat aghast.

"I did! But he was so young he couldn't have been from the government. Anyway, government types don't want our sort of reports, they want us to _burn_ them. And you know, living in a van can be pretty tough financially speaking. You have to do a lot of odd jobs, so it doesn't leave you a lot of time for what's really interesting. Thanks to that guy I get paid for doing what I want to do."

Which meant it wasn't Mulder's mysterious informant.

"Can you tell us what he looks like?" Insisted Scully.

"I can't... I only met him that one time, and the meeting was outside and pretty late so it was dark. He was also wearing a hood and a cap under it. I only saw a bit of his face, and unless it was actually a woman there's no way an older man could have such a thin and fair face. No riddles that I could see. My guess was that he was the age of a University student."

"Then how do you give him your reports?"

"Every month, depending on the town I'm at, a new guy comes at a random time without warning me in advance, and get the report for that other guy."

"You don't know the name of the man you met the first time?"

"Uh... No. He told me to call him Fox, which I found amusing you know? But no last name, no nothing. He mentioned that it was his nickname, said his friends called him that."

A long silence fell over the three. Max looking at them both, apparently happy that his story had some effect on the two agents. He then lit up.

"Oh, but there's two things I can tell you. First, he has a foreign accent, though it was light and I didn't recognize it. Second he did tell me what he was trying to hide from. He said the Government was not much of a threat to him, but the one thing that should never know who he was – or even see his face – came from the skies."

'°0.o°O°o.0°'


	5. Meanwhile in Japan

I own neither X Files nor Yu Yu Hakusho

'°0.o°O°o.0°'

"Are you sure?"

" _Yes man! Disappeared right in front of that FBI agent! In a ray of light!"_

One less informant... Unless he turned up again. They sometimes returned the persons they abducted. Kurama looked around. Most of his colleagues had already left, and his step-father was in his office, but would leave as well in a few minutes...

"Let me call you back."

" _Be quick Boss. I don't have much time here."_

"Will do. It's about time for me to leave anyway."

He very nearly rushed outside, leaving his desk in a state of disarray. It didn't matter, he could always go back to finish his work afterward and his step-father would not make a big deal out of it anyway. What he couldn't do was let months of work in the US go down the drain.

The moment he was in the street he discreetly slipped in the alley next to his workplace and turned on the Makai made communication mirror. Anselm answered before a single ring-tone could be heard. A human-looking face with strangely black eyes and a sole horn in the middle of the forehead stared back at him.

"What's the situation?"

" _The military is stumped. The two FBI agents Pia has been keeping an eye on have been apprehended. We could do nothing without getting exposed to both humans and whatever took Fenig."_

"Where is Pia?"

" _Next to me, freaking out at the moment."_

"Here are my orders; Pia is to remain here and update me on the situation with the FBI agents. Tell her to clear her head, now. You go back to Max Fenig's van and hide it. Use a kekkai to do so. The military can't get their hands on it. Once it's hidden clear it. Take anything remotely interesting, destroy what you think must stay out of the military's hands. You can even burn the whole van if you think you left some hair behind, I don't care." The military couldn't get their hands on anything that contained a yōkai's genetic information. "But make sure that there is nothing that we could use first."

" _And if it's too big and I can't take it with me?"_

"I'm sending two others to help. I'll send you their contact info, call them to give them a meeting point."

" _Should I brief them?"_

"Tell them the following; a human informant was compromised and they are the clean up crew."

No need for this story to spread any further. Not all his men needed to know how close they were to getting discovered if all this went wrong. People who didn't know the whole story couldn't tell it under torture or a truth serum. There was a reason he preferred hoarding all the information and keeping his face and his true nature hidden from the humans (and most of the yōkai) who worked for him. Anselm was an exception as the yōkai who helped him coordinate all his spy network in the US.

The aliens would not be able to find out anything on them, not from Max Fenig anyway. The man had no idea he hadn't been dealing with a human all this time.

"Don't let anything else slip out. Good luck."

" _Then, Anselm out."_

'°0.o°O°o.0°'


	6. Blind Meeting

I own neither X Files nor Yu Yu Hakusho.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'

This Fox Mulder certainly had good connections... And Kurama wanted them, even after Pia had told him that one of Fox's contact had tried to throw him off the trail by lying to him. Kurama could detect lies, so he wasn't too worried. And good hackers that could give him access to the US government's dirty secrets? This could also come in handy. Makai computers didn't work the same way human ones did, and even yōkai experts in informatics didn't usually work with human equipment, meaning they were unfamiliar with it and couldn't hack efficiently, the way humans used to their own systems could... Enlisting the help of human hackers could prove invaluable in the long run.

But for now Kurama didn't know who these hackers were. He had only seen Mulder make a call, and enter the factory with "official documents" proving that they were indeed registered. Documents provided by the computer of the very factory. And unless Mulder could influence the factory's database with his mind and a mobile phone, he must have called a hacker instead.

Then they had entered the factory.

Thankfully Kurama didn't need hackers to discreetly enter a highly protected location. No, he had centuries of experience to compensate for the lack of personal hackers.

And he was a yōkai. Which meant that unless he did a sloppy job at hiding his yōki when in his Yōko Kurama form, he would be invisible. That was a big plus.

That was also the reason why stealing from humans had never appealed to him... There was absolutely no challenge.

But today he had no choice in the matter. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully had proved themselves in his eyes. They were valuable, and could become precious informants (or allies). Adding them to his web could mean a new influx of information, eyes in the FBI... And it was obvious that they were of some importance to the humans aware of the aliens' existence. They would have been long dead otherwise. Kurama could also use that.

Unknown to all the humans in the factory, and the two guarding the entrance to the parking lots, a tall man with long silvery-white hair and distinctly non-human characteristics was strolling through the place like he owned it.

Kurama had simply followed Mulder's car, and entered when the gate had opened for them. He had followed them until the two split up, and Kurama had been forced to choose. It wasn't much of a choice... Scully was a good agent, but she wasn't the one with all the useful contacts. If something happened to her it wouldn't be a catastrophe. If something happened to Mulder, that would be much more troublesome...

Which meant he had to run behind the FBI agent as he tried to escape the security guards. And when they finally reached a warehouse strangely full of medical equipment he saw Mulder freeze in front of the small room in the center, which supposedly held the alien prisoner the FBI agents had been chasing across the country. The guards weren't there yet.

Kurama made a split decision and lifted one arm toward the ceiling, another toward the man. Vines grew along each arm at great speed and grabbed both Mulder and a metal beam above them.

The man gasped when the vines grabbed him and his feet left the ground. He looked like he was about to scream in surprise, but the moment he was in arms' reach Kurama put one clawed hand over the man's mouth, just as the vines tied him more firmly to the fox yōkai so he wouldn't fall down. Kurama prayed that nothing would fall from Mulder's pocket, and that no one would think to look up, because using his yōki must have made him vaguely visible (probably no more than a misty white shape among a mass of dark green vines, but still).

The guards burst into the rooms, all guns at the ready (and those weren't small guns neither). Mulder almost made a choked sound of surprise, but Kurama strengthened his grip on the man's mouth, his claws slightly scratching flesh drawing blood in the process.

"Quiet. What is the point of discovering the truth if you are killed in the process?"

Whispered the fox in Mulder's ear. The FBI agent was trying to crane his neck to see who had saved him. The vines however were holding him too tightly, just like how Kurama wanted it.

The guards looked around in bewilderment, but none thought to look up. The moment they left Mulder was slowly lowered toward the ground, looking a bit disheveled, and his left cheek was bleeding slightly, but otherwise fine. Kurama called back his vines and tightened the control on his yōki until he was once again completely invisible.

When Mulder looked up it was already impossible for him to see the silver-haired man sitting on the beams above him.

Kurama found out that the alien was dead, and though it meant that Mulder would never be able to see it alive and interrogate it, to Kurama it didn't matter since the soul would end up in Reikai anyway. He considered this whole mission to be a success.

He had managed to get a seed containing his yōki under Mulder's skin. Now he would know where he was the moment the FBI agent entered his range of detection. Scully and Mulder were both released without much trouble. And he had managed to see Mulder's most useful informant and get one of his men to follow him.

He would keep an eye on that man. He seemed to know much of what was happening with the aliens.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'


	7. Kiss and Tell

I own neither X-Files nor Yu Yu Hakusho.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'

"I couldn't see him Scully... Even when I tried to look down to see his hand all I saw was a white mist of some kind."

"But he had his hand right over your mouth, you should have seen his skin color at least!"

"White mist Scully. That's all I saw I swear."

"You were probably disorientated from having been lifted so high and so suddenly."

"Could be, but can you explain _how_ he lifted me several feet up in the air?"

Scully stayed silent, obviously irritated at being unable to give him an answer.

"You can't pull a full grown man up alone and with such speed. It's impossible. And he spoke right into my ear, I could literally feel his breath! How did he get up there in the first place?"

"He could have climbed ahead of times."

It still didn't explain how he managed to grab and lift Fox so fast, and from the face Scully was pulling it was obvious she knew it as well. Or it might be because he had been talking about his mysterious savior non-stop for the past four days and she was getting sick of it.

He had described everything to her, how he had felt long hair brush his neck, how his voice was deep and with an accent, how he had felt claws on his cheek instead of nails, how strong that man had felt and about the weird things that had caught him (it moved on its own like tentacles, but instead felt harder like wood and smelled like it too) which he hadn't seen either with how difficult it had been to move. He told her about how the creature smelled a bit like roses, forest and the fur of some wild animal.

She had raised an eyebrow, smirked, and told him he sounded like an enamored teenage girl after a _blind_ date. Fox had moodily pouted for the rest of the day.

But of course he still brought up the subject the next day.

Because he _knew_ he wasn't enamored (indeed his interest these days was more along the lines of Scully herself, despite the fact that they worked together and that their relationship was that of colleagues and friends). Instead he was fascinated. Because everything he had described was the truth. He had not exaggerated anything. His savior wasn't human, it was impossible, and he wanted her to understand that, because her opinion meant the world to him. He needed her to believe him or he would start to doubt himself as well, and he might begin to think that it was all a dream... He didn't want to distrust himself, to feel the fear of not knowing whether what he saw was an illusion or the truth, or if he was going mad.

But those guards wouldn't have left on their own if he had been daydreaming in the middle of the warehouse. He clung to that truth, for what he had seen would then explain why he wasn't currently in a morgue.

Scully sighed and smiled. Her blue eyes softened.

"Well... I can't say I believe that such a creature exists, but I believe in you. I guess it won't take too much effort to change that into _I believe you_."

And that was why Fox could stay strong despite all the obstacles he encountered in his search for the truth.

 _Whoever sent her as another obstacle in my way never realized she would be such a blessing for me did they...?_

'°0.o°O°o.0°'


	8. The Best for Both Worlds

I own neither X-Files nor Yu Yu Hakusho.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'

Pia was rather happy with her life these days. Her job was easy, if a bit boring, and her main occupation was simply making sure that the two FBI agents didn't get killed, and report to her boss so he could contact the big boss if anything happened that required his direct involvement. Mostly all she did was stick close to the two humans, unless she was ordered to stop. Well, that and during her week ends. When she had a break Anselm would take over her duties.

Anselm was her direct boss, which meant she was actually pretty high in the hierarchy. Even so, she had never seen the big boss' face, and as far as she knew Anselm was the only one who had. Not that "as far as she knew" meant a whole lot in their organization, since pretty much everyone knew almost nothing about each other...

The one thing she knew for certain was that this whole thing was probably financed by Enki, and it most likely didn't even make a dent in the Makai's national treasury... Since the same amount of money in the Makai that could barely buy a bit less than a small country's land, could in the human world allow you to buy the same country with armies, mercenaries, weapons and intelligence... To the Makai this whole enterprise was as cheap as most projects localized in Ningenkai (like the newly cultivated humans industrial plants), and ensured the security of the many yōkai living in the human world. So yeah, Enki was probably at the very top of the hierarchy, and their mysterious boss was possibly one of the losers of the Makai Tournament. Not that it helped Pia narrow it down all that much... There were many losers in the Makai Tournament.

She had met the big boss once though, when Anselm had approached her to ask for her participation at the very beginning of this whole endeavor. They had come to her home, and she had offered them something to drink. Anselm had done all the taking, while the man next to him had quietly sipped his coffee, keeping his hood up, a scarf up to his chin, a cap under the hood to hide his eyes, and the way he seemed to be looking at the table with his head lowered made his face hard to see. Pia wasn't sure what to think about him. She couldn't even tell if the guy was actually a yōkai or not. It would make sense if he was, he could indeed be a loser of the tournament then, obligated to obey Enki's command. But he smelled human, and looked very much human too with his clothes and the way she had seen him use his human mobile phone before the two left... After that the only direct contact she had with him was the occasional written report and the irregular calls. The only thing she really had on him was that he looked and sounded rather young at least.

But though she had no idea what or who he was he paid well, and she liked the way he did things, always taking in consideration the security of his employees as much as he could, be they humans or yōkai, while coming up with plans that were swift and efficient.

She liked the fact that he was not only concerned for the yōkai's safety but also for the humans. As a human with strong yōkai ancestry herself, she could really appreciate that. She liked how his voice when he was giving orders was both kind and soft like warm silk and still inflexible like steel. She liked to see how well-oiled this whole human-yōkai spy machine he had created was, how well he choose his men so that they could work together and not ask questions.

She was awed by him, and when it came to singing his praise to others (the ones she could) she was only second to Anselm himself.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'


	9. Green-Eyed Monster

I own neither X-Files nor Yu Yu Hakusho.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'

Dana knew that blaming Mulder for the situation they were in would be meaningless. Of course, when a very large group of persons disappears in a forest without leaving a single trace one would usually consider whatever or whoever lurked in that forest to be dangerous, especially when you have already encountered cases where you couldn't defend yourself or anyone for that matter. They had almost become victims in other cases before, numerous times even. You would think it would have made Mulder more cautious. It would have made anyone else more cautious, but that wasn't how Mulder's thought process worked. When he discovered such unusual cases he generally acted like a kid in a candy store and rushed in, more often than not ignoring her worries or reluctance. That's how he got results, but that's also how they landed in such messes so often.

This time they were stuck with a Forest Ranger named Larry Moore, Doug Spinney an eco-terrorist and an unlucky young woman who had been hiking in this forest before a centuries old tree had been cut down, unleashing microscopic insects that pretty much ate any type of animals, humans included, and attacked as soon as the sun set. Steve Humphreys the representative of the logging company Schiff-Immergut Lumber was already dead, and they were running out of fuel for the cabin's electricity which meant that they would soon lose their only source of light, and the cars had broken down quite far away due to some traps set on the roads. They might reach them before sunset, but they would never get them to work...

"There might be a way to survive this..."

The young woman who had been stuck in this situation with them broke the tense silence in the cabin.

"How? No more fuel, the cars are useless..." There the Forest Ranger shot an evil look toward Spinney who was responsible for the traps on the road. "The radio won't work either..."

The woman shook her head with a sigh.

"You are not used to out-of-the-box-thinking are you? We won't use technology."

Mulder suddenly looked very interested. Dana destroyed every ounce of jealousy she felt into tiny bits, and then squashed them some more until she was sure nothing was left. The woman named Pia looked Italian mostly. She had tan skin, the bluest eyes Dana had ever seen, it was almost unnatural, and extremely long wavy black hair. So black they almost seemed to have a blue tint to them. Aside from her coloring she wasn't particularly pretty though. Her jaw was too strong, her eyebrows too thick, and she was tall for a woman, easily towering over Mulder. She was also all muscles, no breasts, almost no hips either. Dana shouldn't be feeling jealous. Even more since she had absolutely no interest in her colleague. She really didn't.

"We need someplace with light, that we can build it from scratch every night. We also need to be able to take the necessary materials along with us while we follow the road. But that means we must be as few as possible, in a small space. While we do that mister eco-terrorist here can take what's left of the fuel, run to his own car since it's probably still in one piece, get out of here and call for help. If someone come to get us we'll be along the road so they will find us easily."

"So how do you create a small space that would be bright enough to keep the bugs away?"

Asked Moore with a frown. They apparently all thought the same as Dana did. After all Pia had run from her camp, leaving behind all her stuff after discovering a few bodies around the wood. She had only thought about reaching the road to find some help. Her solar lamp had stayed behind, as well as her tent.

"There is some plastic sheets lying around, as well as easily movable workbenches. We'll use that to make a tent. Then we will light a fire inside, and at least one or two outside. Of course we must make sure that the air circulates well enough, meaning it won't be closed, but I don't think a closed space would stop microscopic insects anyway. And we take as many mirror as possible along with us which we will place at strategic points around the tent to reflect the light. That way we will create a space as luminous as possible."

It meant using the few mirrors inside, but also those from the cars didn't it? Which meant they would have to vandalize the ones in front of the house, and then run with all the materials to the other ones... Would they make it in time?

"I will carry the heaviest load such as the workbench. And I can light a fire anywhere. I'm very good at burning even the greenest wood." Said Pia with a secretive smile, her blue eyes almost looked as if they were glowing with the way they caught the light coming from outside. "We might not get out of here unscathed, but we should still manage to survive. We'll only have to take turns to sleep. The fires can't go out or we're dead."

They all exchanged hopeful looks.

"Okay." Mulder clapped his hands together once. "It's still day outside, so let's get the workbench and the plastic sheets. Find some bags, matches and take the mirrors on the car outside. If there are any inside we take them too.. We might need a wheelbarrow, that way we could carry some cut wood without being slowed down. We'll only use it in case of emergency, if we don't find wood where we will be camping. We prepare everything tonight so that tomorrow we only have to grab our stuff and run."

No sooner had he finished his sentence everyone left the cabin to do what they needed to do outside. Anything inside could be done once night had fallen.

They were getting out of here.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'


	10. A Method to One's Madness

I own neither X-Files nor Yu Yu Hakusho.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'

Max couldn't believe he was once again meeting that man. He couldn't remember much of his abduction, and since then his health hadn't been the best, with his epilepsy reaching a whole new level.

So sometimes he forgot a whole hour, sometimes half a day, sometimes more. He blamed the meds.

He only hoped the man in front of him wasn't a product of his imagination.

"Are you here to get me out? Because that would be great, like... real great."

The hooded man shook his head. Again he was standing with the sunlight to his back, making sure that Max got enough sun in his eyes that he would be unable to see his face. How he had gotten inside wearing a hood, Max had no idea. He suspected that he hadn't asked permission, and simply done so stealthily.

"If you're not here to get me out, then why did you bother coming?" He grumbled. "How did you even find me in the first place?"

"By accident. My contact in this town saw you through the garden's high fence when he was passing by in car. It was the first time he ever took that route home, we are lucky he was looking around searching for the correct direction, or he could have missed you. We searched everywhere, but my net is not nearly large enough to encompass every institution in America. And I certainly have no one working in asylums."

"Ok, luck. Or not. I mean, how does that help me? You're not here to tell the doctors I'm not a madman. Which means I'm stuck here..."

Not that he really complained, since he at least got to meet Sharon. But getting told all day long that your memories are in fact all made up really takes a toll on you.

"I'm sorry Max. I came merely to remind you that we are here to protect you as best as we can now that we have found you. Once you get out I can make sure that you get a job. I can even help you leave the country if you wish."

"Thanks... I guess."

It was a nice offer. Not what he had hoped for, but nice nonetheless. He also knew he wouldn't take him up on that offer. He couldn't stop searching for proofs of their existence now. It was impossible, with the way his whole life had been shaped by his experiences. He had _seen_ things... He couldn't _unsee_ them.

"But until then you are safer here. The government won't try to kill someone that has been dubbed as delusional. No one will believe you now, so they won't care if you tell anyone. Basically you are protected by your own medical history. But that will change if you are allowed to get out thanks to a mysterious person appearing out of nowhere and vouching for your good mental health. It will mean you have an ally. You will once again be under close watch. We don't want that."

"I've been kidnapped working for you... Can't you at least give me something? Some info? _Anything_?"

The lithe silhouette relaxed in a standing position that meant he was considering Max's question. There it was, the thing that had made him trust that stranger. He didn't know his face or his name, he wasn't even completely sure of his gender, but one thing he knew was that he was earnest despite his secrets and his silence. He took all of Max's questions seriously when they first met, and answered what he could. He was like an honest, kind spy, if that even existed. Not really the sort of person a government would be interested in hiring.

"You probably guessed why I hide my identity."

"You have secrets to hide."

"Yes, and they are not mine. I am protecting an entire population, and also each and every one of my agents. And I don't know if I will be able to hide those secrets from the aliens. With their higher, but otherwise unknown level of technology I doubt they practice torture to gather information. Torture I can resist. Anything else, I'm not sure. If either the government or the aliens got their hands on me, do you have any idea how many people would be in danger?"

Max didn't know, but from the young man's (woman?) tone, he guessed a lot.

"But I can tell you at least one thing I suppose. The reason I am doing this, is because I doubt their intentions are friendly. Perhaps they don't see us as intelligent beings, perhaps they just don't care, or perhaps they do care... But in the end they are abducting people, and their very presence turns entire parts of many governments all over the world against their own citizens. Perhaps they do not actually mean harm. I don't know. And because I don't know their intentions, I prepare for the worst."

It made sense, somehow. Though this degree of pessimism was somewhat sad as well in Max's eyes.

"So far, what we are seeing isn't really reassuring right?"

Added the other in his strange, exotic accent as if he had read Max's thoughts. The stranger gave him a small ironic smile. Max could barely make it out in the shadow of the hood. For some reason he got a sudden chill.

"Yeah. Yeah I guess it really isn't..."

On both sides. Human and alien.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'


	11. A Study in Gold

I own neither X-Files nor Yu Yu Hakusho.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'

Kurama never had any problems with funding for his net. Enki's generosity was motivated by his desire to keep the Makai as well hidden as possible from the aliens, and as the king he had no shortage of wealth, especially when compared to that of a human leader. But the Makai's currency was not only different from that of Ningenkai, it was also just as diverse. Bringing that much wealth into a human system discreetly was delicate and needed to be progressive.

Thankfully Kurama knew the sort of people he needed to contact and how to find them, and the value of pure gold was universal.

Once you had all that translated into the necessary currency (which was sadly different depending on which part of the globe it was to be distributed), you needed the help of the banks to efficiently pay most of your agents, or the amount of work Kurama needed to do to keep a clear record of everyone's salary would double. The only people Kurama paid in cash were the human informants, especially ones that could attract the wrong kind of attention such as Max Fenig. No need for any governments across the world to wonder why so many UFO fanatics were receiving mysterious payments from unknown companies. As such he had decided that the people aware of the Makai's existence (yōkai living in human world, psychics or human with yōkai ancestry like Pia) would be paid through deposits in their bank account, and the humans that didn't know about yōkai would be paid cash. The existence of coworkers receiving deposits and not linked to any alien or government related parties made his shell societies seem mostly legitimate, and all those people were tasked with distributing the cash payments to all the human informants, provide security, and essentially being a the muscle of this operation. It would be impossible to link them with Kurama's informants by looking at their bank accounts. The same could be said of said human informants, since cash was hard to keep track of, as long as they applied some amount of discretion when using it.

Kurama liked to keep things simple, and so he did as anybody else did, he used shell companies he had all across the world to keep and distribute Enki's money. He was the chairman of all these fake companies under different names and appearances for each, and the vice-chairmen for each of them were the agents that helped him organize his net in each specific part of the globe, like Anselm in the US. The banks and involved countries or states swore to uphold secrecy, if only to guarantee their reputation as tax havens, otherwise they would lose their wealthiest clients, and those were not Kurama. He was a wealthy client, not a wealthy corporate. That couldn't even begin to compare. The secrecy was for them, but Kurama largely benefited from it.

In North America he had created his shell company in Delaware, stored half the money there, the other half in Panama. In South America, Panama had served both purposes. Same thing in Japan, China and the eastern part of Russia where all the paperwork for quite a few companies had been signed in Hong Kong. For western Europe; Swede. England was its own tax and corporate haven. Eastern Europe and western Russia; Macedonia. In Singapore he created a few companies to cover southern Asia and Oceania. Saudi Arabia covered the northern part of Africa, while Kenya and Bostwana covered the southern part. Each dummy company covered one to three countries, no more. The bigger the countries, the lower the number covered by one company. Without all the agents regulating the numerous bank accounts as vice-chairmen Kurama would be drowning under all the work.

The banking system humans had created was so complicated that Kurama doubted aliens would be able to make head or tail of it. A long-lived yōkai used to overly lengthy political plots that could span centuries had no such troubles. It still didn't mean he would sacrifice his sleep in favor of even more work.

But still, when dealing with all this money and paperwork he sometimes wished Enki would have found someone else for the job. After all, in the end, he had always found more thrill in forcefully acquiring wealth than in illegally storing it...

'°0.o°O°o.0°'


	12. Iron Man Came and Saved Me

I own neither X-Files nor Yu Yu Hakusho.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'

Anne smiled at her youngest son when she entered the house. The six years old grinned at her from the top of the stairs, already dressed in his pajamas and getting ready for bed. It was already night outside. She could hear the sound of her thirteen years old daughter arguing with her father about having to go upstairs to call a friend. Dan obviously wasn't about to let her though.

"Nuh-uh young lady! Your brother helped set the table, now it's your turn to help undo it. Your mother will come home anytime now, and it's been a long day for her and me both. You do your part!"

Anne shook her head in obvious exasperation when she heard her teenage daughter accusing her father of being an old jerk, or something along those lines anyway.

"May, if you don't help then you can forget going to the restaurant tomorrow. I bet you don't want that."

"Now that's plain unfair! You're actually threatening me!"

The doctor in biology sighed and tip-toed upstairs, hoping they wouldn't notice her. She could deal with her daughter's rebellious phase later. Right now she needed to put some more comfortable clothes on, and take some time to think in the office she shared with her husband. At the moment she was slightly overwhelmed by both excitement and dread, and she didn't know which was stronger. Excitement because the discovery of an unknown bacteria containing DNA that could only be extraterrestrial was... mind-blowing. The dread was a bit harder to explain. The moment she had read the results of her analysis she had felt that informing the government of her findings would be an extremely bad idea, but she had nothing to base her instinct on, and she was still torn on the subject. Normally something so big needed to be reported, and she knew she was breaking some rules keeping that to herself. But when she'd told Scully about the obligation she had of handing those results to the authorities she had seen something flash across the woman's face, too fast to decipher, but it had left Anne with a distinctly uncomfortable feeling ever since.

Had that been fear agent Scully had shown?

When she had finally changed in her nightgown she walked to her office, the results still in hand, though she didn't quite dare to read them again. Downstairs the argument had changed into a shouting match.

She entered the office and closed the door behind her. As she walked to her own desk, the light turned off, and a hand put over her mouth prevented her from doing much noise. Her struggles and whines went unheard by the rest of the house, completely covered as they were by her daughter's and husband's voices.

"Shh... I'll let you go, don't shout. I'm here to talk. Also don't talk out loud. There is a van parked in front of your house listening in. Their listening device is pointing at this window right now. They know you came back home, and they saw you turn on the light. If they don't hear you talk, they'll think you left the office."

The hand lightened its grip slowly, as if wary she would scream, but her voice was seemingly stuck in her throat. When she turned around and put some distance with her attacker, she discovered a man at least ten years younger than her, his hands raised in a non-threatening gesture. His dark eyes went to the window, and he moved in this direction so silently she almost doubted that he was here and not some hallucination for a moment. He peeked as best he could without being seen from outside, and sighed.

"They are pointing at your bedroom now. We're safe for now, but just in case we'd better talk with this."

He pointed at some paper and pencils on the desk. In the darkness of the room Anne couldn't make out much about him. Only that he had shoulder length hair of a rather light color, and that his eyes seemed unnaturally dark. He wore dark jeans and a sweatshirt with Marvel's Iron man on it.

"Wha..."

"Shh!"

He wrote something fast on a bit of paper and sat on the floor, close enough to the window to benefit from the light coming from the street lamps outside, but also low enough not to be seen. He pointed at the floor next to him, and she joined him as silently as she could, feeling distinctly ungraceful next to his silent movements. Her heart was threatening to burst out of her ribcage, but one careful look through the window confirmed what he had told her. A van was parked right in front of their house, pointing some sort of satellite dish at their bedroom window. Cold sweat started to flow down her back. The piece of paper was put between her hands and she read it fast. It said:

" _You're in danger, you and your whole family. What you discovered today was meant to be confidential. All the tests results are being destroyed right now, and they are killing people to do it. We managed to save your own sample and documentation. It's all being moved out of the country, somewhere safe. You and your family need to leave as well._ "

Her face must have shown the shock, horror, incredulity she was feeling, because the man pinched the bridge of his nose, took back the paper and wrote on it frantically.

" _Dr. Carpenter, if you stay here you will have some kind of accident, and your family may get involved as well. My boss is trying to keep people safe as best he_ _can_ _, and he has the funds to get you out of the US with a good cover._ "

She tore the paper and pencil from his hands.

" _How can I trust you?_ "

His answer sent chills down her spine and her decision was made.

" _You can't, but honestly that should be the least of your problems. I'm being told they are roaming around your car right now, so if I were you I'd check my tires tomorrow before going to the restaurant._ "

He pointed at his ear, where she finally noticed a small earpiece.

Ok.

Fine.

Now how to break it to her family?

" _Who am I dealing with?_ "

" _I'm Anselm. You'll meet my boss once this mess is cleared. He might ask you to be a witness in the future. How does living on a small island in Japan sounds to you?_ "

'°0.o°O°o.0°'


	13. To Trust or not to Trust

I own neither X-Files nor Yu Yu Hakusho.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'

Dana could feel shock settling in. Mulder laid some feet away, unconscious, and under her fingers she could feel his informant's pulse weakening just as the car of his would be murderers left at full speed.

And with all her medical knowledge, she knew that man was lost. A bullet to the heart meant that you died in under less than a minute, and she was absolutely powerless to stop it. Even though she owed it to him to have gotten Mulder back.

"Move away from him! Now!"

She lifted her eyes numbly toward two silhouettes running in their direction. Her brain barely registered that they weren't cops, but not much else. A tall woman, a somewhat shorter man. Both with hoods over their heads. She couldn't see their faces, and she crawled away from the informant to cover Mulder as best she could, raising a gun in their direction menacingly. The two of them walked right past her, completely ignoring the threat. The woman rushed to the downed informant and put her two hands over his torso without actually touching it. The man was speaking to no one that she could see, so probably through an earpiece, and at the same time he tore open the blood-stained shirt of the victim.

"No cameras? Are you certain? Just raise a kekkai, I don't want to risk being seen and my hands are busy."

Nothing seemed to happen at first, and then the air around them seemed to distort for a second before all went back to normal. No abnormal heat could be felt that would have explained the phenomena. The man pulled off his hood, and his woman companion gasped.

"So you're..."

"Concentrate or we'll lose him. I can't use reiki like you do. He needs your energy right now."

Dana slowly approached as the man used a hand to entangle his long red hair. She stopped breathing when small, tiny vines seemed to grow around this same hand, too fast for it to be possible, and she wondered whether she had fallen unconscious herself and was dreaming the whole thing.

"Boss... Do you know what you're doing?"

"I have never done anything that delicate before if that's what you are asking."

He put the vines over the hole in the informant's torso.

"But we need to hear what that man knows. Our allies won't be able to do anything if he dies. They are obligated to follow protocol for humans you know that. So we have to improvise."

Dana could see the vines crawling inside the hole, pushing even more blood out to the body. The informant didn't even twitch.

"He's dying." She whispered.

"I have some men gathering blood pouches of different types."

"They won't know which one to use..."

"Oh, they will."

"That's stupid! He'll already be dead!"

The red-headed young man had closed his eyes and didn't seem to be listening to her anymore. She could see something moving inside the informant's torso, probably tearing even more blood vessels.

Slowly she saw something being pushed out of the wound, until it fell down on the road. Stumped Dana brought the bullet in front of her eyes, not quite believing what she was seeing.

"That's not possible."

The tall woman snorted.

"I had noticed that skeptic streak when we met the last time."

"Huh?"

And then slowly the blood stopped flowing out of the wound. Miraculously the informant was still breathing, though it was shallow and irregular. The young man pulled back, opening striking green eyes.

"I'm using the vines as stitches right now. His heart is beating but he won't last long, he needs a healer. We need to move to the closest safe house. Can you heal the smaller damage I caused?"

"No, I can only force his body not to give up. I don't generally use reiki, and I'm an amateur when it comes to healing."

Said the woman with a shake of her head. The young man didn't frown, didn't sigh. It seemed he had already known the answer before-hand.

"I'm calling in reinforcement in any case. We cannot stay here. We are out in the open. Agent Scully, we will be using your car. Can you bring it closer? Put agent Mulder in the trunk if you are certain his life isn't in danger. You will drive, and I'll sit next to you."

"Then I'll be in the backseats with John Doe here?" Asked the woman.

The young man nodded, and his accomplice didn't question him further.

"He needs to go to the hospital..." Intervened Dana.

"Where they will be waiting for the moment to inject him with some poison to finish him off. I don't care whether you trust us or not agent Scully, but your cooperation would be greatly appreciated."

"He said that we should trust no one..."

"And just this once it is the very thing that might save his life."

The same life he'd risked to save Mulder. And suddenly Dana realized she really had no choice at all but to comply.

"Fine."

But she intended to get some explanations out of these two. Because this time the need to know went too far. Too little information, too much necessity to uncover the truth, too many people's lives on the line all made for too much risks. Being left in the dark was too risky, they couldn't do it again.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'


	14. Partners in Crime

I own neither X-Files nor Yu Yu Hakusho.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'

"In coma?"

Murmured Fox, feeling as if the world had just sunk beneath his feet and he was sinking with it. The only person who had ever approached him to guide him toward the truth was now in coma. Even Scully looked guilty about it, even though she had never put much trust in his mysterious informant.

"He insisted that he be the one to make the exchange, and they shot him. He should have died you know, but..."

"But we intervened to save his life. Sadly the shock his body went through, and at his age too, was too much for him. We don't know when or if he will wake up."

The two people that entered the small room where he was lying down were familiar to him. The tall young woman with wavy hair and the bluest eyes ever grinned his way. He couldn't recall her name but he did remember her from their case with the flesh eating insects in the forest. True to her words back then she had managed to light even damp wood, and she had saved their lives. The young man at her side Fox remembered clearly as well, although he had only seen him once from afar.

"You..."

"It's nice seeing you again Mr. Mulder."

The red hair and green eyes still made him seem otherworldly, even without a suit. Even more without the suit actually, because now Fox realized that he looked very young... The suit had made him seem older but obviously he wasn't. He couldn't be more than twenty. What was he doing involving himself in this cloak and dagger stuff?

"You seemed older the last time..."

"I'm Asian Mr. Mulder, I could probably pass for a high-schooler if I tried hard enough. Don't worry, I'm older than I look, old enough to decide when to put my life in danger."

Now that he heard him talk, even his accent sounded familiar. Except he hadn't heard him talk the only time he had seen him. So why did he feel that way?

"You're not American. What do you want with us, what do you gain from involving yourself?"

"Nothing personally. I am merely ordered to do my work you see. But you may rest easy, the government I work for is not interested in America's defense program or anything that could harm your country. In fact, we couldn't care less what America does as a whole."

His smile was sincere, even if his words sounded dismissive, perhaps even arrogant. But then again they sounded true, and Fox had to wonder what country didn't care about what America was doing nowadays... Because as far as he knew America was one of the world's greatest powers, and he doubted it would have changed with them not knowing about it.

"The informant, what will happen to him?"

"We will move him somewhere he will be safe and hope he wakes up."

"And us?"

"You will have to deal with the consequences of your actions as FBI agents on your own. But we will provide your with reinforced security so you won't have to watch your back all the time. You know a lot, and we hope you will share it with us before we let you go."

That sounded ominous.

"And if we don't?"

"We will let you return to your normal lives of course, but you can't expect us to share in turn then, and in all likelihood the security around you will be lowered. I honestly doubt the FBI will let you handle the X-Files after that much nosiness anyway."

So not exactly a threat, but it left them with little options. Either tell nothing and they would have to forgo assistance and forget getting answers to their questions, or tell him what they knew, be offered bodyguards and information in return. The problem was that they had no idea what that boy (man?) would do with what they would tell him. And as stated previously he didn't work for the American's government.

"What do you want exactly? What use are we to you? We are only two FBI agents. We are not CIA, we know little of importance, and nobody trusts us even in the Bureau." Asked Scully with a frown.

"We want to know whether the beings that come from the sky bear ill intent, and how to defeat them should they try anything. We want to know the full extent of their power so that we can protect ourselves. So far we believe they do not come in peace. But you should know that better than anyone Mr. Mulder, seeing as you never got your sister back."

Fox could feel the blood flee from his face. The woman at the red-head's side smirked.

"Boss, I think you're scaring them."

"That was the point." Answered the young man plainly. "The last few days were a disaster. Because they separated you couldn't keep an eye on them both, and my range for finding Agent Mulder here does not go further than two kilometers, which is a bit limited. Most importantly the one person who held all the answers is in a coma, and the scientist they involved, Dr. Carpenter, was almost assassinated as part of their own government's cover up. They ought to be scared by now."

The woman – Pia, now her name was coming back to Fox – chuckled nervously.

"Ok, so what my boss is trying to say is that the situation is grave, mankind could be at threat but we don't know enough to be sure, and that's the main point of this organization, figuring out the threat and preparing against it. And hey, I think you ought to see us in a friendlier light, since we saved your hides more than once you know?"

And this was more than the FBI had done for them until then... The young man took a chair from a corner of the room and sat down in front of them, in a stance open enough to indicate he was willing to make a deal. And truth be told Fox was willing to take a chance here.

"Are you the 'Fox' Max spoke of?"

"I'm surprised you made the connection." Said the young man with a genuinely impressed look.

"Ah, well, I doubt there are that many hidden organizations interested in aliens in this country... And he said young looking, perhaps a University student, with an accent."

"I see. I had told him that should you meet he was free to drop hints. I had meant to meet you in the future, only not in these circumstances. In fact I planned to approach your informant first."

"That... You haven't had the chance so far right?"

"I am a very busy man. And things have progressed too fast anyway. Let's just hope he wakes up."

"What do you want with us?"

"An exchange of information, not only today, but with future discoveries as well. I have no doubt that you will keep looking, even if you are fired. You and Miss Scully here are persons of interest that could also help us unearth the conspiracy in this government. You would be given a way to contact us if you need a hand or if you are in danger, or even to ask for further information in a case. That's how far we are willing to go. This isn't us asking for a one way deal. This would be an alliance. Still, we won't tell you everything about us. In fact the only exchange we will make will concern aliens. Should you fall into enemy hands we don't want you to know anything that could put us in danger. Also, the only contact we will make will concern either aliens of your security, nothing that could be a danger to America as a whole will ever be leaked through you. Does that seem fair to you?"

It was fair, too good to be true even... Fox looked at Scully. She seemed as hesitant as him, but the prospect of bodyguards seemed to appeal to her. After such a close call as last night Fox could understand. She had been left alone to deal with his kidnapping and that had resulted in their only ally so far getting mortally wounded... The young man was right, these last few days had been a disaster.

"Can we try this out?" Asked Fox. "See how this exchange of information works in the next month or so, tell each other a few things, go back home with a way to contact you, and see if we are willing to tell each other everything we know as we go?"

He hated sounding so hesitant, but he feared making a clear cut decision when he had just woken up and his head was still pounding like a drum. He had expected the young man to refuse, but instead he was awarded a small smile.

"That is actually feasible. Learning to trust each other does seem like a good idea. Lets do that then."

And suddenly Fox could see what had made Max trust that man so easily. The patience in his eyes, the way he let himself relax after Fox's proposition, his smile which had been kind. A pale pianist's hand was offered to him. As he shook it the callouses on them made him wonder just what kind of sport the young man practiced for them to be so hard.

This time, when pale green met bright green, it was with the look shared between accomplices.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'


	15. Logic Flipped Me the Bird

I own neither X-Files nor Yu Yu Hakusho.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'

"I can't tell you what I saw…"

"Did he tell you that you needed to keep silent?" Asked Mulder worriedly.

"No, that's not it… I just don't know what I saw myself. It's too…"

Too out of this world. Not that she could say that. It went against her resolutely scientific mindset. It scared her that for once she was the one to have seen something incredible. And not incredible as in 'great', this was incredible as in something that she simply could not (would not) believe.

Had she hallucinated the whole thing? She _had_ been in shock at the time, and clearly not in her right mind. And moving vines pushing a bullet out of a body? That was ridiculous.

But a bullet to the heart meant you died in less than a minute, and Mulder's informant had been alive last she'd seen him. In a coma certainly, but that was a lot better than what should have been expected with such a wound.

Mulder looked at her, fascinated by her unusual silence. It sent a small shiver down her spine. His excitement was contagious, but she wasn't sure they felt the same kind of excitement.

She was afraid. So very afraid that they had gotten tangled up in something too big for them. Did they really have to be part of that foreign man's spy network?

She had met her own bodyguard. Her new neighbor was a young woman of Chinese descent that had recently moved to the US. She had invited Dana to her house for tea, and smiled kindly while telling her that they had a friend in common. Lihua Xiāo was a tall, quiet woman, with stunning brown eyes and very long eyelashes, high cheekbones, and black hair so short your eyes could not help but be attracted by the elegant shape of her neck. Aside from her boyish haircut (even shorter than some men), she was the classical Chinese beauty.

And from the way she had cut those apples to go with the tea, she knew perfectly well which end was the pointy bit and how to use it.

Men would have called that sexy she guessed. Dana had taken that as yet another sign of how messed up her life had become.

"Tell me Scully…" Mulder almost begged.

She pinched her lips and frowned, looking anywhere but at him.

"He _moved_ plants Mulder. He stitched your informant's heart with a _vine_. Without even touching him!"

Mulder's sharp intake of breath betrayed his surprise.

"And this girl came later, she spent what, fifteen minutes with him? When I asked to see to his wounds as well, there wasn't even a scar on him!"

She turned to her partner, searching for a proof in his eyes that she wasn't mad.

"Mulder… What did I _see_?"

"Maybe… Maybe I'm wrong Scully. But from what you just said, I'd say you met my invisible savior from last time."

"Ok, but _how does he do that_?"

She could tell from his face that he was as lost as she was herself.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'


	16. Contingency Plans

I own neither X-Files nor Yu Yu Hakusho.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'

Pia's workload had lightened somewhat now that Scully and Mulder were followed by bodyguards wherever they were. Which only really meant that she was free for other duties. Still she had a lot more free time now.

She used it and the money she had from her new job to finally buy a house of her own, like she had dreamed for years. But maybe also to put in place contingency plans that did not depend upon Kurama's continued presence and well being. While it was reassuring to see that it was such a famous S-Class yōkai in charge of this whole net, she also knew that compared to many other S-Class yōkai he was physically much more fragile, dependent as he was on his human body. All it would take was a really good sniper managing a head-shot, either downwind or in a crowded city to hide his scent and that of gunpowder…

Granted all yōkai could theoretically be killed by that. Sniper rifles were frightening things. They packed a punch and could be used from so far away you couldn't even feel your opponent's reiki.

Hell, Kurama was stuck in a human body, meaning he had a heartbeat, unlike most yōkai… Could he be killed if a bullet hit his heart? It gave Pia chills just thinking about it.

Worst thing was probably that they couldn't even give _him_ bodyguards. His best protection was anonymity. A simple employee in a medium sized Japanese firm had no reason to have bodyguards, and until they felt that his identity had leaked somehow Kurama would refuse any protection. Considering his identity was a secret even from his own men, it was to be expected. Bodyguards have to know what you are doing at all time to properly do their work. The fox yōkai wished for no one to hold that much info on him, and even Pia had to admit that it would be safer for his identity to remain secret as long as possible.

And so Pia had started putting some money on a personal off-shore account, bought herself a new Italian identity to use in case of emergency, and started working on her motherland's accent. As a third generation Italian she sounded more American than she felt comfortable with.

But until such time that the net was compromised and her life in danger, she would remain in the US and support the young man that was her boss. For, though an old yōkai he may be, he was still a younger human than herself, with as much experience in humanity as should be expected from his apparent age.

Only thing was, now she absolutely _couldn't be taken_ by humans or aliens. Not anymore. Like Anselm she knew too much. In a way she knew that for the safety of the Makai and the Human World she also had to prepare herself for the eventuality of a necessary suicide if she was to be interrogated.

That… She wasn't quite ready for.

Unless Reikai could offer her a job afterward. Then she'd consider it.

She would need to bring that up with Kurama the next time she'd see him…

'°0.o°O°o.0°'


	17. In Two Minds

I own neither X-Files nor Yu Yu Hakusho.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'

Kurama re-read Aymeric's report of Fox Mulder's surveillance. A new, reluctant, informant and a new and possibly temporary partner.

Interesting.

A tall, older black man. Identity unknown. A young FBI agent named Alex Krycek.

Would he need to put surveillance on both of them? Kurama couldn't see how that would be possible at this stage unless he recruited more people. He was severely understaffed and while much was happening in the US, his agents in other countries reported similar conspiracies concerning aliens so he simply couldn't move them. He needed them all to stay right where they were to keep a handle on things.

Japan was actually a lot easier to manage since he was living there. And he was still far from uncovering how much of Japan's technology exportation was in fact alien tech in disguise. Or how much of their industry and economy had been compromised.

The choice between Krycek and the informant was a rather obvious one. The informant was a sure way to get information. Krycek on the other hand _might_ be an uninvolved FBI agent, who trully had no idea what was going on in the shadows of the Bureau.

Kurama doubted it. Walter Skinner's superiors would never have let another Scully approach Mulder, unless _this_ Scully was a lot less innocent than he looked.

But considering how little Walter Skinner actually knew of the conspiracy he seemingly worked for, there was no way to know if Alex Krycek knew much of anything as all either. He could very well be a pawn. A willing pawn, but one nonetheless.

Which got Kurama back to wondering if he was really willing to lose his time with a potentially innocent man's surveillance, as opposed to one clearly not innocent at all. It was a harder choice than you would think. The informant was risking his life giving Mulder new information, he would be on high alert. Any car following him would be noticed immediately, his house could already be watched by the conspiracy he was a part of. Finding a yōkai in Ningenkai fast enough to follow a car, and discreet enough to not be noticed… Well, Hiei was the only yōkai Kurama knew who could do that. The fire yōkai had clearly told him he had other things to do than to follow around a human and watch him for hours at the risk of dying of boredom. Not only that, but he had his own task to do as a loser of the last Makai tournament.

And well, Hiei wasn't on Kurama's payroll and anyway he didn't care about money at all.

On the other hand Krycek would be easier to follow and put a surveillance on, more concentrated as he would be on Mulder than on a potential third party. But that was _supposing_ he was involved.

Kurama didn't like making bets.

Or… he could decide not to bother with a surveillance of the informant at all and simply approach him directly.

Thing was, this man seemed reluctant to share anything at all with Mulder, whose informant he had _decided_ to be. No way would he say anything to Kurama whom he didn't know at all.

He would have to think of a way to approach this man and fast. Before he met Mulder's previous informant's fate.

'°0.o°O°o.0°'


End file.
